A number of professions, industries, trades and occupations use standard abbreviations for certain words and phrases. The data processing apparatus and method of this patent application enables users of word processing programs automatically to convert those words and phrases to the standard abbreviations, and to convert said abbreviations to their corresponding words and phrases, in a manner similar to a spell-checking apparatus and method. The data processing apparatus and method of this patent application also enables users of word processing programs to select from a list of standard abbreviations for insertion into the text. The data processing apparatus and method of this patent application also allows for adding to, editing, updating and customizing the list of words and phrases and of abbreviations which are to correspond to each other within the apparatus and method.
A number of existing products have some, but not all, features of the present invention. For example, the CiteRite™ II software from Lexis-Nexis checks legal citations only for proper form and flags errors. This software is not general enough to use with abbreviations in other fields, and does not convert abbreviations to words. The Oberon Citation7 software supports the proper generation of citations with abbreviations from user-defined tables, but does not convert abbreviations to words or allow the user to select from a list of abbreviations corresponding to a given word. The Quickwords™ software from Corel only works with a single word processor, WordPerfect™, and only converts words to abbreviations, not abbreviations to words.
There is a need for a completely generalized word-to-abbreviation and abbreviation-to-word converter program that works with any type of text containing abbreviations from any profession, industry, trade, or occupation. The software program must allow the user to select the word or abbreviation to be converted and should provide the user with a list of possible conversions. The program should also scan an entire text for a word or abbreviation to be converted and automatically make the conversion.